Anthony Kiedis and Flea pick the “most successful” moment of their career
Every band has their finest moment, and for funk-rock masters Red Hot Chili Peppers, it arrived right at the very beginning. This was a time when the group were still budding musicians, knowing what they wanted to achieve but not necessarily how to do so. Luckily for them, one night at the start, the stars aligned, and the band’s first lineup realised that they had something special.
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ original lineup was formed by frontman Anthony Kiedis, bassist Flea, guitarist Hillel Slovak – who passed away in 1988 – and drummer Jack Irons, who were all friends and classmates at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles. Their debut performance was on December 16th, 1982, at The Grandia Room on Hollywood Boulevard to a reported crowd of around 30 people. This materialised after their friend, Gary Allen, asked Flea and Kiedis to create an opening act for his EP release party.
At the time, Hillel Slovak wasn’t talking to Flea. He had taught Flea the bass and had not long after asked him to play in his group, Anthym. However, Flea took to the instrument and developed his now-iconic style, departing only a few months later to play with the majorly influential LA punk outfit Fear.
After Flea and Kiedis were asked to form the one-off act, they reunited with Slovak and Irons, who were already committed to the band What Is This? At the time, each member of the new quartet was greatly inspired by Defunkt and, more importantly, the sounds of hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Flash, who had particularly galvanised Kiedis to try his hand at music. Demonstrating how greatly Grandmaster Flash impacted the four budding musicians, they named their one-off group Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem.
The show was a success, and despite having played only one short song, Tony Flow and his Masters of Mayhem were asked to play at the venue the following week. Things moved quickly, and shortly after, they changed their name to Red Hot Chili Peppers, playing more shows across Los Angeles. The rest, as they say, is history. This was the start of one of the most successful bands of all time.
Speaking on Flea’s This Little Light podcast in June 2023, Flea and Kiedis looked back on that fateful evening at The Grandia Room. Reflecting on the many different jobs he’d tried before becoming a musician, Kiedis said: “None of it really gave me a sense of accomplishment or like, ‘This is what I was meant to do with my life’ until we wrote a song.”
Flea touched on the animosity he received from Slovak before forming Tony Flow, “It brought us back together because Hillel was mad at me because I had left and joined Fear,” he said. “He hadn’t talked to me; he hadn’t fucking talked to me for months and months and months.”
The pair remembered that Kiedis had the words, and Flea came up with the groove for their unnamed number. Remarkably, their only rehearsal was before going on stage at the venue in the green room, which didn’t even have any amps. Despite being so underprepared, though, the band was a success, and according to Flea, they were a “hit”.
“It was super successful for a one-song set,” Kiedis recalled of the two-and-a-half-minute performance. “Short song, small crowd, late night, nowheresville Hollywood, at like, not a prestigious location, very under the radar kind of a club…right away, I felt a great sense of success, like, this worked 100%, and it was, ‘We gotta do this again.'”
As the performance was such a triumph and kicked off their careers, Flea and Kiedis agreed that they have never been so successful. Flea asserted: “Of all the things we’ve done through the years, I’ve never felt more successful than that night”. The Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman echoed this: “No, that was the most successful we’ve ever been, for sure.”
Expanding his point, Flea continued: “I mean, well, we’ve had lots of great successful moments, but it was clear when we did it that it was fucking real; that you were the singer, we were the guys, we were the fuckin’ band.” Kiedis concluded: “It felt like there was lightning in the room. That energy was so electric.”
Stream the podcast in full below.
